


Different river - same ocean

by MrBreadMan



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU, But Pidge and Hunk too surprisingly, But eventually Voltron, Character Dynamics, Enemies to Friends, First Meetings, Friendship, Lance and Keith COUGH COUGH, Team Building, Team boning, character dynamic, no voltron au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:35:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29643810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrBreadMan/pseuds/MrBreadMan
Summary: Commander Holt, Matthew Holt and Takashi Shirogane came back from the Cerebos mission. Everything seems in order, but the deep bonding as Team Voltron never happened - they partly don´t even know each other.Some things are just written in the stars, because although everything is different, they are still Team Voltron.[Title is reference to "Steven Universe" as Garnet explains different paths of the future, it is really fitting]
Relationships: Hunk & Keith & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Hunk & Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt
Kudos: 2





	Different river - same ocean

_“I don´t want to be a paladin of Voltron!”_

_“But it is inevitable. It´s your destiny.”_   
_“Maybe in this reality, but there must be one, where things turn out differently!”_

_“There are different paths -rivers- but they all end in the same ocean. Convince yourself.”_

As students of the Garrison Lance and Hunk were able to get into the front rows as the returning astronauts were welcomed back on Earth. The crowd cheered and clapped loudly as the crew came onto the stage. They travelled father into space than any human being before, they were heroes – at least to students as Hunk and his friend. Even though Samuel Holt and Takashi Shirogane lead the mission, he admired Matthew Holt just as much. He went to Cerebos after all and was the youngest to ever do so - and he wanted to be the next.

Samuel Holt told the audience: “It has been truly an honor to have such wonderful crew. I can´t stress it enough how important a great crew is for a successful mission.”

Hunk looked over to his friend how seemed to be glued to the Commander´s words. Hunk really agreed with that sentence of Holt, but that was also the problem. He could always count on Lance, but two people were barely enough to form a crew, there are at least three people needed. It didn´t seem that hard of a task to find a third member, but no one really sticked to them. They fast got tired of Lance´s risky maneuvers and or Hunk´s vomiting. Hunk sighed and couldn´t believe that such a thing stood in his way. Sure, it wasn´t essential to have a crew to get through school, but it would be a whole bunch easier.

Suddenly the whole audience clapped and cheered again, Hunk twitched for a moment, he didn´t realized that he was that into his thoughts. He gathered himself and clapped along, although he couldn´t recall what the Commander talked about.

Then the pilot Shirogane began his speech: “I can only agree that it has been an honor and always be an honor to be in the place I am now.”

Lance turned to his friend and noticed his sadden expression, so he asked: “Everything alright, buddy?”

“Yeah, sure. I just thought about what Holt just said about being a crew.”

“Ah, don´t worry so much about it.”, told Lance his friend, “I mean, I don´t think we won´t pass because of it.”

But then they didn´t.

“Can you believe it?”, screamed Lance at the paper as he walked with Hunk out of the Garrison´s building, which was in the center of town.

“I mean team work is a very essential part of being an astronaut.”, mumbled Hunk and looked sad at his own paper, where it was written in red: FAILED.

They would have the chance to repeat the course, but it was frustrating nevertheless. “We should do something to take our mind of it, I mean we can´t change it now.”, suggested Hunk with a shrug.

“Probably.”, sighed Lance and they walked a few steps. A few blocks away from the Garrison building they encountered a girl with long blonde hair. Lance immediately looked after her and Hunk already rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”, thought Hunk and followed his view.

Lance already started following her and started talking to her: “Hey, are you the moon, because even when it´s dark you seem to shine.”

The girl stopped and looked at him for a moment, her expression was almost frozen. Then she simply answered: “The moon doesn´t shine. It just reflects.”

Lance was dumbfounded for a moment then he shook his head in confusion. Hunk could see even from a distance that this wasn´t going well. But Lance tried again: “How about you tell me your real name then?”

The girl eyed him and said in a neutral tone: “Katie.”

“What a beautiful name, I´m Lance. That´s my friend Hunk. We wanted to hit the city, care to join us?”

Katie looked between the two young men but then crossed her arms and denied: “No, sorry. Partying isn´t my thing…” Then she turned and walked away. She entered the Garrison building.

Hunk stepped next to his friend: “Do you think she is also a student at the Garrison? I never saw her there.”

“Well, I definitely never saw her before. But she seems really cool, I wonder if she would have said yes if I offered a different activity.”

“If she really has something to do with the Garrison, you´ll see her again.”

Lance spotted Keith walking into the same building. “Argh Keith.”, huffed Lance and walked in the opposite direction.

Katie walked into the building and couldn´t believe she was finally here. She stopped at the entrance; she was told to wait for Takashi. A black-haired boy walked in, he greeted her with a nod and didn´t give her any more attention. They stood next to each other in silence, looking out of the window.

Suddenly Shiro´s voice appeared behind him: “Welcome to the garrison. So, you have already met each other then?”

They looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Keith this is Katie, Katie this is Keith. I thought you might get along together.”

“Why would you think that?”, asked Keith.

“You both are getting into the garrison – sooner or later. Just trust me.”, explained Shiro, “Also, I wanted you to meet before we´ll have dinner tonight.”

Keith raised a brow and then sighed: “Alright.”

Nobody was saying anything for a while, then Katie suggested: “Well, I need to go for a walk with my dog anyway. You could join me.”

“Okay then.”, agreed Keith as he looked at Shiro, he nodded.

They left the building and Katie told him: “You don´t actually have to come with me. I won´t tell.”

Keith was confused and first thrilled at the idea, but then refused: “No, I wouldn´t lie to Shiro.”

“Mhm”, she nodded, “But we could do whatever you like. I mean, doing my chores is not a good first impression, right?”

“Two birds with one stone, right? I don´t mind.”, shrugged Keith, Katie´s face lit up and lead the way.

They walked a few blocks then Katie spotted the two boys from before on the opposite sidewalk. Lance waved at her and she slightly greeted him too. Suddenly his expression dropped and she couldn´t tell why, she wished she could disappear in that moment.

“Everything alright?”, noticed Keith concerned.

“No, no it´s nothing.”, mumbled Katie, but he didn´t buy it followed where her view went before.

“What did he do?”

“Oh nothing.” She felt dumb for feeling down just because he stopped waving. That was just stupid, right?

“Don´t mind him, don´t let someone bring you down. It is not worth it.”

“Yeah, you´re probably right…”, agreed Katie and started playing with her hair. She couldn´t resist looking back at Lance one last time. Their eyes met, he just smiled at her now. She was so confused and looked away fast.

Keith tried to change to topic: “So how…is your hobbies…going?” He wanted to slap himself mentally for that sentence, but there was no going back now.

She didn´t seem to notice, because she just smiled at him: “I am really into videogames, what about you?”

“Well, I like learning about space. It sounds lame, but…”

“No, it sounds amazing! There is nothing more interesting!”, cheered Katie, “I mean, what could be more exciting? I have tons of books at home. Would you like to see?”

“I´d love to.”

When they arrived at the Holt´s house, Katie showed him her room. There was something lying in almost every corner, but Keith noticed that her bookshelf and desk were tidy.

“Sorry for the mess.”, she apologized and pointed at her bookshelf, “If you see anything you like, you could take it with you. And in case you decide to disappear, I can just charge Shiro for it.”

Keith nodded and looked over the spines of the books. She fast kicked some things on the ground in one corner so that he wasn´t stepping on anything. But then he spoke up and she quickly looked up: “So, how do you know Shiro? Are you close?”

“Well, he went with my father and brother to space, I know they are close, but with me…I wouldn´t say that. I just meet him occasionally at dinners or something.”, Katie thought a moment and added, “But, I think he knows a lot about me. I mean they went to space together and had plenty of time talking. Well, he knows at least that I violated the rule not to disturb during the mission. Oh my god do you think he will tell the Garrison authorities?”

Keith looked at her and smiled: “No, I don´t think Shiro would sell you out. He isn´t like that.” He looked at the shelf and took one book. He gave her a questioning look and she nodded.

Then Bae Bae came running into her room, the leash already in her mouth. Katie chuckled and took the leash and was about to say something, when someone shouted: “Pidge, Bae Bae needs to go out.”

“Yeah, I know.”, shot Katie highly annoyed back.

Matt came to her room and saw that she wasn´t alone.

“Oh hey, didn´t saw you there. Hey Keith.”

The young man in question slightly raised his left hand to greet him back.

“Whatever lets´ go.”, mumbled Katie and took her visitor by the knuckle and pulled him out of the house

It was late in the evening as Katie knocked on her brother´s door, “Can I come in?”

After he approved, she walked in on him playing a video game.

She sat down next to him on the ground and watched him for a while, sometime Matt asked: “You already beat that game right, please tell me where the magic cup is.”

Katie chuckled and did as he asked then she mumbled: “I can´t wait for the next time we can play together from the beginning.”

It was always the same, when Matt came home after a long time, he would catch up on the video games he missed, and then they would buy the next one that would be coming up.

“You could always play dumb and be my player 2.”

“Jup.”, she agreed immediately and grabbed the other controller.

“How´s school?”

“Nothing really new, same old song.”

“How´s Rosie doing?”

“Fine, she gets better along with Bae Bae every day.”

Lance woke up and didn´t feel motivated at all to get up. Today would have been the first day of the new school year at the Garrison, but he was still stuck in the first year, so his school year would start a few weeks later. His family knew and he really didn’t want to encounter any of them today, because he knew they would have pity on him. They only meant well, but it still hurts.

It was always of a reminder that he had failed. Failed at the thing he thought he was good at. Then he remembered that he only stayed in class because Keith dropped out. He sighed. On what was he even good at?

He checked the clock and noticed it was already noon, so he figured he should get up eventually. When he did, he made his way fast out of his house. He went on a walk and passed his old high school on the way. That were simpler times he thought.

He looked at the school yard that in front of the school´s entrance and watched the students leave to go home. Then he spotted a familiar face - Katie. His face lit up, maybe he would have a new chance today.

Luckily, she went alone, so Lance tagged alone. “Hey there.”, he greeted. She looked unimpressed and annoyed up to him. As she recognized him, her expression softened, but then she looked away. Katie fastened her steps.

“Hey, hey!”, said Lance again and tried to keep up with her.

“What do you want?”, she asked without looking at him.

“I just wanted to talk.”, he said and tried to catch her eye.

After a few seconds she sighed and gave in: “Alright. What is it?”

“I get that you don´t like partying, but I thought that we maybe could do something else together? Whatever you like, whenever you like.”

“If you say so. I wanted to go to the library today to get a few books.”

“You like reading?”

“I like knowledge.”

“That´s good, that´s good. About what exactly?”

“About space, physics…stuff like that.”

“I saw you going into the Garrison center about we met, are you going to apply?”

“Yes.”

“I already am a student at the Galaxy Garrison.”

“Really?”, she asked interested and Lance´s eyes lit up, he added: “Yes. I am cargo pilot right now.”

“That is so cool. Do you live there right now? Why aren´t you there right now?”

“Oh, I will move in in a few weeks, for the new semester. But I´ve already seen the Garrison, it is really big and as students we are allowed to view all the space ships and when the Cerberus mission crew arrived, I got a seat in the fifth row! Did you also see it? Who´s your favorite of them?”

She chuckled and answered: “Of course I did. And not to push his ego any more than necessary, but Matt´s my favourite.”

“Yeah, he is pretty amazing. Wait, do you know him well? Or are you also one of his fangirls?”

Katie looked at him with disgust: “No, no way.”

They entered the library and Katie straight went to the science book section. There they saw no one else than Matthew Holt.

“Look Katie!”, Lance whispered and pointed on the young man. She rolled her eyes and went to the book shelves and started looking them through. She put one big out and then Matt looked through hole where the book used to be and said: “Booh!”

“Oh, wow. You´re so mature.”, mumbled Katie and skimmed through a few pages. Her brother went up next to her and stated: “You still want to prove me wrong?”

“I just want to check it again.”, she grumbled and closed the book again, “We´ll see about the rest.”

Then her view fell on Lance who viewed her with widened eyes from a safe distance and sighed. Matt teased her: “So, you got yourself a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, sure. He is all yours if you want.”, she stated and pointed with her head at him. Matt shrugged and went away. Lance immediately ran up to her and noticed: “Oh my god, you know Matthew! Are you his girlfriend?”

“Oh my god, no! He´s my brother.”, she screamed and shook his head.

“Ok, ok.”, Lance threw his hands in the air in defeat, but then he shook his head and yelled, “He´s your what?”

Keith knocked on the door of the Holts, and Katie opened. “I am allowed to visit Shiro at the Garrison today, want to come with me?”

“Yes.”, she agreed immediately and they went to the base in the desert. Keith rode them on his air skiff and when they arrived Shiro was already waiting for them. First Keith was afraid that he might me angry that he brought his friend along, but he almost seemed pleased that he did. He didn’t even mention that originally he only invited him.

“Follow me, there is something I want to show you.”

Shiro guided them into the simulator room, where Lance and Hunk were just lectured by Iverson. Keith huffed when he saw the commander – he was also a reason why he needed to leave the Garrison.

Shiro cleared his throat and Iverson turned around. When he noticed who Shiro brought along, his expression dropped: “Why would you bring them?”

“I know Mr. McClain and Mr. Garret are hard to set up with, so I thought how about these two, they are different than everyone you already got here.”

“They don´t even know the first thing about the basics.”

“I think we should give them a chance.”, disagreed Shiro and stepped aside so that Iverson could eye Katie and Keith.

“Just for you, Shiro”, Iverson gave in then he turned to the visitors, “Listen up, get dressed in uniforms and be back in five.”

Keith nodded and Katie just followed his lead. He led her to the dressing rooms and they came back in uniform, Katie´s hair was now in a ponytail.

As the four were in the simulator, one that needed two pilots, and the door finally closed, Lance stated: “This is going to be a disaster.”

Hunk stated: “Or it could be our chance.”

“Oh yeah sure. But with Keith, this is bound to fail.”, disagreed Lance and pointed at the black-haired.

“Am I supposed to know you?”

“I was in your class? We were constantly competing? Lance versus Keith? I am now a cargo pilot thanks to you dropping out.”

“Congratulations.”, mumbled Keith and rolled his eyes.

Hunk looked between the two arguing and didn´t know what to do. He searched for the girl, who was inspecting all of the inventory of the simulator. Then she started touching some buttons and Hunk started to panic: “Please, don´t do that.”

“I know what I´m doing.”

“Yeah, maybe. But please don´t do this anyway. I don´t want you to accidentally start the simulation before any of us has their assigned roll and is seated.”

“I won´t. Don´t worry.”

“It is hard not to worry when you´re that close to the start button.”

Katie gave him an annoyed look and then turned her attention to the controls once again.

Suddenly the simulator started and Hunk screamed: “What did I just tell you?”

“Oh, I didn’t do anything!”

“Yeah? Then why it is started then?”, he yelled in panic.

Iverson saw the four arguments and looked at Shiro in doubt. The officers were in a room were they were able to watch the students on multiple screens. Takashi gave him a tooth gab grin and explained: “They just have to get used to each other.”

“And you started the simulator?”

“To speed it up.”

Keith looked at everyone and stated: “It doesn´t matter know we have to get into position.”

Pidge got into the communication seat and Hunk in the one of the engineers. There were two seats left: the pilot and co-pilot.

The two men already gave each other a death stare, but then Shiro said over the speaker: “Keith is pilot and Lance co-pilot.”

They just sat down and the moment they did they failed the simulator, because their ship already had crashed. The autopilot failed, because it only lasted that long, and the team probably just failed at having any chance they ever had to become a space explorer.

Iverson looked at Shiro and said: “This was terrible. I have never seen anything like this.”

“Well, to be fair, they don´t have a chance to prepare. Let´s give them another try.”

Then the simulator started again and the four got into position.

After they passed a few planets, Lance questioned: “What is the mission exactly?”

Hunk said with a reproachful tone: “That would be Katie´s job. To ´communicate´ with our base.”

She rolled her eyes but looked at her boards. She randomly pressed a few buttons till she heard the voice of someone. Katie wasn´t able to understand concrete words and didn´t know how to fix that, but there was something about “landing” and “next planet”, so she gave that information on.

Keith steered to the next planet and Lance did the same. The control of the ship was divided, so they needed to work together, so they wouldn´t crash into any of the cliffs or mountains. They were in control, their direction overall was right, but there was a huge range they needed.

“Hunk shoot these rocks; we need to get through.”

He shot and although he missed a few times he eventually got it. Right in time to throw up because the flying of the pilots was everything but calm and steady.

There was a slim passage they needed to get through, the ship went a little too much to the left in the wrong moment, so that the ship rubbed onto the cliff next to them. Suddenly the planet exploded and the simulation was failed.

“What happened?”, they complained. Lance added: “We did amazing, I don´t get it.”

“Come outside already.”, they heard Iverson say over the speakers and so they did.

They stood in a line, during Iverson walked up and down and lectured them: “Do YOU know why this mission failed?”

The younger looked with questioning looks at each other, but no one stepped forward to explain. After none of them explained themselves, Iverson questioned: “Do you know what you did right – at least?”

Keith didn´t dare to look Iverson in the eyes and looked to the ground, but nevertheless he was able to notice that Shiro stepped next to Iverson. When he considered it, he would rather look into anyone´s eyes but Shiro´s. He knew that he must be very disappointed in his performance. In him. He sighed and Iverson´s words became a blur to him.

“First off, the message you got was ´Land on the next plant with rings, watch out for the meteors.´” Katie looked to the ground and stiffened her shoulders. “The further orders were never received, because your communication responsible didn´t check the orders twice. But to be fair – to be fair, she was distracted by the explosion your engineer caused. The information that the atmosphere of the planet was very sensible never got through, but the aiming was just as bad.”

Hunk visibly sighed and Katie couldn´t help but feel that this was her fault.

“And at last, you pilots. I´ve had many students over the years but I never saw two disagreeing that much. The range you needed to fly is also one of a kind. When you were supposed to fly in a straight line, was wider than the span of your ship!”

The cadets were ashamed and looked at Shiro for support. Iverson followed their eyes and asked: “I´m sorry, Shirogane, but this performance wasn´t really promising. Even though Holt and Kogane did not knew their way with the technology, I do not see the potential in them you see.”

The four got kicked out and were left alone in front of the building, Shiro stayed behind with Iverson.

Lance turned to the rest and told them: “What was that? We could have easily pulled this off!”

“Well, Katie never had any training, I never flew a ship that class. What´s you excuse?”, demanded Keith and stepped closer to the young man.

“Oh, you think you are so great. The fact that you got another chance was a miracle in on itself. Should I have pity on you that you didn´t get a second miracle and actually ace at it. But now – thanks to you - my realistic opportunity at becoming a pilot is in danger – thanks to you.”, countered Lance and crossed his arms.

“You put it in danger all by yourself. Don´t blame your failure on me.”

“Oh, I do!”

“Guys!”, yelled Hunk and stepped between the two, “I know this went bad and we are all not really happy about it, but that was that. Arguing won´t get any of us anything, got it?”

“We just would have needed another shot.”, added Katie and crossed her arms in thought.

Lance grimaced and said: “Well, not everyone gets favored by a certain pilot, so most of us only got one. And that was it.”

“Not for me. I am not done yet.”, countered Katie and looked around for anything to give her ideas. While Keith looked at her curiously, Lance rolled his eyes and suggested mockingly: “I bet your family could pull a few strings.”

“I am so done with you and your self-pity.”, hissed Katie and stepped closer to him, “You´re not the only one who wants to be a space explorer, don´t forget that.”

“I don´t but you seem to do just it. Wait your turn, this is not even your year.”

“We´ll see about that.”, answered Katie and walked away, Keith followed her.

**Author's Note:**

> I really tried to keep them all the characters, which is difficult because I want to consider their current situation. They will get their canon character growth eventually
> 
> Comments are highly apricated


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